How to bake a mouse

Turn oven to 350.  Wait ten minutes.  Smell cooked mouse.

It seems when we were using the oven, we indeed smelled mouse, because (no surprise here) the insulation was chuck-a-block filled with dead mice and poop.  So, the Preway stove/oven is apart in many, many pieces, the disgusting mouse-nest filled insulation has been removed from around the oven and you'd think it would be an easy thing to find oven insulation to purchase....like at the big box home improvement stores, or an appliance store or even the local woodstove dealer.  Nope.   Not even close.  Seems, like the Hudson car, this little item is rare and costly.  So, onto the internet and found a place in the midwest who will graciously send us a small piece for another C note (are you kidding me?)  So, I sucked it up, ordered it, and hopefully will remember where all the parts and screws go to put this thing back together.  I decided NOT to take a pix as I was disassembling it, so hope my aging brain can put this puzzle back together...stay tuned.

Open House

Seems our trailer was a hit with all the visitors we had.  In fact, we were overwhelmed with the response.  We so appreciated all the comments and oohs and aahs, not so much for our benefit, but for the fact, we all get to see and enjoy a trailer in it's "just off the 1955 sales lot" glory.  Our deep appreciation to D.N., who so graciously allowed us to take this beauty out of his barn and clean it up and take it on the road.
We sure enjoyed meeting new folks and re-connecting with our Pismo rally friends, and are looking forward to the next get together.  Thanks to Margaret Martan for putting together this rally.

A few of the tweeks that we will be doing:
1.  replaced all the light bulbs with cool, low watt "curly-que" style bulbs.  That should save some juice running through the old wiring.
2.  Leaky gaskets seemed to fix themselves!  No more drippy anything, so debating on whether to mess with them.
3.  Pull apart stove and look for more petrified mice.
4.  Reverse hall closet door so it opens toward the kitchen. Since we don't need it as a closet (that is why it faced the bedroom), but as a pantry, it makes sense.
5.  Add another piece of wood to the bottom of the magazine racks so the old mags don't slide out.
6.  Hmm, well actually that is all.  Not too bad for it's first run out in 38 years!

The Mousemobile

So, we pulled the Boles to Meek's Bay RV Resort for 5 nights to work out any bugs before the rally on the 15th.  We were pleasantly surprised that we had no big surprises....well almost none.  Darn, if we don't still find a few dried mouse poops that fall from who-knows-where on counters or the floor.  But, after using the oven, which, by the way holds the set temperature absolutely on the nose, we smelled MOUSE.  We can both smell mouse at 100 yards, so the hunt was on.  It seems, when we took the stove and oven apart to clean it we neglected one area..the insulated space between the top of the oven and the bottom floor of the burners.  We tucked a mirror alongside the space there, and we could see insulation, and we think we saw some petrified somethings, but we won't know until we get home and take it apart...again.


We have a drippy shower head, which I can fix with a petcock arrangement installed after the shower head, which will actually help taking navy showers easier.  The hot water side of the bathroom sink is also drippy, so we turned off the hot water side of that faucet.  That shouldn't be too bad to fix.  Our new 5 gallon hot water heater seems to be the perfect size.  The 3 gallon porcelain flush toilet works great, the old Marvel fridge is amazing.  Not only does it not ice up too fast in the ice cube area, but it keeps everything perfectly cold, and the shelving arrangement allows for lots of food that is easy to access.  We are cozy at night, albeit with lots of blankets.  Those old wool twin size blankets folded in half sure are warm.  We found that a small portable heater takes the chill off very quickly.  


The one thing you have to watch in these old trailers though is how many things are plugged in at one time.  We turn off the water heater, which of course is electric, to use the microwave or the heater or a blow dryer.  So we try not to have two big heat producing appliances going at once.  If you keep that in mind, you won't trip the breaker.  


So, the rally begins and we are looking forward to meeting like-minded old-trailer enthusiasts and swapping stories.